Wiktionary:Votes/2019-01/Moving Novial entries to the Appendix

Moving Novial entries to the Appendix
Voting on: Moving all Novial entries from mainspace to Appendix space, e.g. chokolate to Appendix:Novial/chokolate. All Novial translations in mainspace would also be removed, but Novial could still be linked to in other contexts. Novial would also be moved from the “excluded except” list to the “should have lexicons in the Appendix namespace” list at WT:CFI.

Schedule:
 * Vote starts: 00:00, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Vote ends: 23:59, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Vote extended to 23:59, 28 March 2019 (UTC), driven by a late change in the voting stance of Per utramque cavernam and the borderline result. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:16, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Vote created: 02:02, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Discussion:
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Beer parlour/2019/January
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Wiktionary talk:Votes/2019-01/Moving Novial entries to the Appendix

Support

 * 1)  Finding enough citations for the language does not seem possible. פֿינצטערניש (talk) 14:44, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * As I said at the Beer Parlor, it's hard to find citable authors other than Otto Jespersen, and given the language being most successful 1928-1943, any works are not freely available on Google Books or Hathitrust. I don't oppose appendixfying, but I really think it better to just point to Otto Jespersen's works on the subject and let it go at that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:56, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * 1)  —Mahāgaja · talk 07:04, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
 * , for the same reasoning as Lojban. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 05:30, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
 * 1)  Per above. --  19:40, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * 2) . Based on what Prosfilaes says, it may be necessary (or at least desirable) to dramatically downsize the number of words we include, in the manner of e.g. Dothraki. I am sympathetic to doing that or removing the lect altogether as Rua suggests. - -sche (discuss) 16:55, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * 3) . It seems the alternatives are to remove Novial entirely (which might be worth considering) or to let it die a slow, painful death as terms fail RFV a few at a time. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:46, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
 * 4)  This, that and the other (talk) 09:28, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * 5) . For the same reason as Lojban. — Algentem (talk) 06:07, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * 6)  Yes please. —*i̯óh₁n̥C[5] 21:16, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1)  strongly, for the same reasons as I gave in the Lojban debacle. To wit: it removes (or is perceived as removing, if פֿינצטערניש's and Prosfilaes' comments in this vote are any indication) the inclusion criteria without introducing new ones, making RFV/RFD processes impossible. These are particularly important for conlangs, because people are much more inclined to invent and promote words in their favourite conlangs than in natural languages, which is not something we should be party to if we want to be taken seriously as a descriptive work. If editors of Novial want it to be subject to a laxer set of criteria than LDL, they can propose one and we can have a meaningful discussion about it. If they were to do so, I would be more inclined to support that proposal (no promises, though) if it stipulated an -esque disclaimer, as Dan Polansky suggests. While moving the entries to Appendix would make it less likely for someone to stumble on them, if they were to do so, they would not be met with any indication that the information is less reliable than mainspace material, which I presume is why anyone wants this language out of mainspace.__Gamren (talk) 14:52, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * , I think that your votes (those you've created and cast) have been counterproductive in this debate, but I think that your core ideas are genuinely good. I'd like to draft a vote with you to establish attestation criteria for the appendix. I'm travelling for the next few days, but leave me a message on my talk page and we can try to work on a robust vote that can get passed. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:09, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd certainly be happy to help, if I can, but the vote draft I made before were not well-received, maybe because I don't edit the relevant languages myself and therefore don't have a sense of what material is available. I could make a generalized, abstract (i.e. not referring to specific works) version of this with more options, but I don't see that that would go differently. Perhaps you would make a draft yourself? Otherwise I don't really know how to proceed.__Gamren (talk) 21:03, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I should also say that I don't think I'll agree, personally, to anything laxer than WDL. The rationale for LDL, to me, is the idea that there's a "hidden corpus" of non-durable text. For conlangs, the majority of the text is available.__Gamren (talk) 21:17, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't oppose removing the language completely, but for now I think this is a step in the right direction.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:41, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * 1)  moving them to the Appendix namespace. Support removing it entirely. The Appendix namespace is not a dumping ground for things we don't want in the main namespace, and it definitely should not contain dictionary entries. —Rua (mew) 14:28, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * 2)  If Novial is moved to the Appendix for it being a ConLang, then shouldn't other ConLangs be moved too? Such as Esperanto, Interlingua, Volapük, etc. This begs the question: what qualifies a ConLang for inclusion on Wiktionary? While Wikimedia is not for things made up in one day (theoretically, anyone can make up their own language if they'd like), some ConLangs such as the above are very common and widespread. Esperanto has even been added to Google Translate! Are there any other reasons that Novial should be moved, besides the fact that it's a ConLang? Johnny Shiz (talk) 21:48, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It appears that you haven't read the discussions linked above. Novial is, unlike Esperanto, not at all widespread and almost exclusively written by a single person. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 22:03, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Unlike with Esperanto, Ido, and Interlingua, there is not a large literary corpus that could make Novial meet the criteria for inclusion. פֿינצטערניש (talk) 17:42, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, I understand your arguments. But all in all, I can't support this. For one thing, the language exists, and if it's not a big thing today, it has been one in the past. The argument that "Wikipedia [or Wiktionary] is not for things made up in one day" is patently absurd when applied to Novial. But more importantly: Wikimedia acknowledges its existence. Make no mistake: I have my doubts about the Novial Wikipedia as well. But as long as it exists, users should be able to look up words through Wiktionary. Moving all entries of a language to the Appendix namespace is a time, man power, and server space consuming operation with no obvious advantage. So in case of doubt: leave it alone. Steinbach (talk) 15:07, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Struck as ineligible to vote. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:12, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * For reference: Voting_policy.__Gamren (talk) 19:01, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that Steinbach now has enough edits in qualifying namespaces, so should his/her vote be unstruck? ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  12:29, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
 * "Their account must have at least 50 edits (...) by the start time of the vote." (my emphasis)__Gamren (talk) 12:47, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
 * 1)  In absence of a mechanism to remove unattested or unreferenced entries. ←₰-→  Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  16:06, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Clarifying that my opposition isn't express support for deletion; though I feel quite indifferent about deletion vs. moving to the appendix in this case. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  11:46, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) Late : actually, I'd prefer to see it deleted entirely (per Rua). In any case, oppose per LBD and Gamren. Per utramque cavernam 12:50, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * 2)  Okay, if all the objections are for deletion, that the Appendix is inappropriate, I'll support that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:48, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Seems to me that at least right now, 8 votes are support, 3 are oppose but supporting deletion, 3 are oppose but not supporting deletion. &mdash; surjection &lang;?&rang; 09:14, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I count Johnny Shiz against deletion/moving, Lingo Bingo Dingo explicitly indifferent, and Gamren doesn't seem to be expressing anything explicitly on the subject, though I would say the last two support deleting it step-by-step via RFV if nothing else. Yes, "all the objections" was a little broad.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:12, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * In principle individual RFV would be preferable, but I don't want to subject anyone to that task if everyone agrees the language isn't going to survive. I do support deletion.__Gamren (talk) 15:05, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Abstain
. I tend to, and might move this to the support section before the end of the vote, but I'd like to remind everyone of this discussion:. Per utramque cavernam 11:09, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Switched to oppose. Per utramque cavernam 12:50, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * 1) . For reference: Votes/2018-02/Moving Lojban entries to the Appendix. I am not very clear about the benefit of moving something to an appendix space; what it does is that it introduces incovenience, while the content will still be in Wiktionary database, accessible to readers. I am not sure what the appendix namespace does that a badge of shame in the mainspace stating the relaxed attestation criteria would not do. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:08, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The difference between Appendix and a "badge of shame", as you call it, is that the latter would require actually specifying the attestation criteria, which has not (yet) been done.__Gamren (talk) 12:22, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The verification inclusion criteria and the storage location are orthogonal: whatever criteria are chosen, they can be applied in the mainspace as well as in an appendix. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:27, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * In principle, yes. In practice, this vote has implications on the inclusion criteria. But fine, you don't need to justify your vote.__Gamren (talk) 21:13, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I think including something in an appendix is an acknowledgement that it has some importance even if it doesn't meet the strict Criteria for Inclusion. In Novial's case, it was created by a prominent linguist who was actively involved in other IAL movements. So it's less about shame and more about giving the language an honor not bestowed on the majority of such languages. פֿינצטערניש (talk) 17:45, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * And by "prominent linguist" I'm not referring to the typical self-puffing of IAL creators; this is the guy who coined the term "Great Vowel Shift" and first studied it. פֿינצטערניש (talk) 15:10, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Decision
9-6-1: Seems like no consensus. Deletion vote, next?__Gamren (talk) 19:18, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the next step is a CFI for conlangs; making clear rules usually gets more support than deleting content. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:44, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed with . פֿינצטערניש (Fintsternish), she/her (talk) 19:50, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Do you mean a CFI for appendix conlangs? Conlangs in the mainspace are already covered by CFI. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:28, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 03:52, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
 * But that wouldn't apply to Novial, since we've just established that there is no consensus for it to be moved to appendix. So, a vote to delete Novial and a vote to establish CFI for the appendix conlangs would be unrelated, and can happen concurrently.__Gamren (talk) 17:35, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
 * That's untrue, and if you just read what LBD said, for example, it's clear that at least some people would be fine with moving Novial to the appendix if there were a CFI governing such entries. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:48, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * @Metaknowledge: Would you be interested to clarify why keeping Novial in the mainspace but applying LDL criteria to it (including a single mention from an applicable source) would be a bad idea? For readers, an example of LDL entry with a badge of shame is Malagasy ondana. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:44, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * LDL criteria are a reflection of our recognition that languages like Malagasy are spoken much more than they are written, and we must therefore give more weight to the written material that does exist. Novial was never spoken more than it was written: it was simply never used much at all. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:28, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with a deletion vote. Discussion of a CFI for appendix conlangs is open, but I'm less than open to what seems to be a one-man effort like Novial, no matter how famous.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:24, 8 April 2019 (UTC)